Virginia Democrats file Supreme Court Hail Mary to save redistricting

WASHINGTON (CN) — Virginia Democrats filed a long shot emergency appeal at the Supreme Court on Monday in hopes of saving a redistricting effort aimed at capturing four congressional seats in the midterm election.

On May 8, the state’s high court nixed a constitutional amendment approved by over 1.6 million voters allowing legislators to redraw congressional maps. Democrats asked the Supreme Court to block the ruling, arguing the state court erred and overstepped its authority.

“By forcing the Commonwealth to conduct its congressional elections using districts different from those adopted by the General Assembly pursuant to a constitutional amendment the people just ratified, the Supreme Court of Virginia has deprived voters, candidates, and the Commonwealth of their right to the lawfully enacted congressional districts,” the lawmakers wrote in an emergency filing.

Virginia Democrats said their state’s high court ruling amounted to “judicial defiance of the Commonwealth’s constitution.” Using a “novel and manifestly atextual interpretation,” they argued that the state court “overrode the will of the people.”

Democrats began the two-year process in 2024, claiming it was a response to Trump’s call for Texas to add additional Republican seats. The proposed map dispersed slivers of Northern Virginia, a densely populated, wealthy liberal suburb of Washington, D.C., throughout the state.

Amid several lawsuits from national and state Republicans, Virginia’s minority party challenged the amendment for a handful of reasons, ranging from the ballot question’s partisan nature to procedural defects in the process. Republicans filed the two primary challenges in rural Tazewell County, where a local judge ruled in their favor. The majority ultimately relied on a challenge to the timing of an intervening election to nullify the referendum.

The state constitution requires the General Assembly to give voters two opportunities to vote on representation before implementing any amendments. Democrats, who control both chambers, recalled legislators in October 2025 on party lines under the guise of a special session initially called in 2024 to correct a budgetary error.

Democrats passed the amendment for the first time after nearly a million Virginians had already cast their ballots through early voting in the 2025 election. The ruling hinged on the definition of the word election: Republicans successfully argued that early voting is part of an election, so Democrats missed the opportunity to use the fall 2025 election. Democrats, meanwhile, argued they satisfied the constitutional requirements because an election is defined as the day the votes are counted.

Typically, the U.S. Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction to review state court rulings based on state constitutions. But Democrats said the Virginia high court’s ruling was interwoven with federal law because it touched on the definition of an election.

“The understanding of federal law on which the Virginia Supreme Court based its ruling was gravely mistaken,” the lawmakers wrote. “It simply ignored the federal statutes that settle the question: ‘The Tuesday next after the 1st Monday in November, in every even numbered year, is established as the day for the election, in each of the states and territories of the United States, of representatives and delegates to the Congress commencing on the 3d day of January next thereafter.’”

The Virginia high court ruled an election included any time when a ballot may be cast, striking down the amendment because early voting had already begun in the state. But Democrats said that early voting is only lawful because it does not expand the duration of the election itself.

“It is precisely because early voting precedes the general election, and does not expand it, that early voting is consistent with the federal definition of a single ‘day for the election,’” the lawmakers wrote.

While state courts are given broad authority over interpretations of state law, Democrats said there are constraints on their authority. Three years ago, the Supreme Court held that state courts do not have free rein to invalidate congressional maps under state law in Moore v. Harper.

“This is the rare case in which a state court’s decision so dramatically departed from the text of the state constitution that it satisfied this exacting standard,” the lawmakers wrote. “Even with ‘the usual deference [this court] afford[s] state court interpretations of state law,’ the decision below ‘impermissibly distorted’ the Virginia Constitution ‘beyond what a fair reading required.’”

Virginia Republicans said their colleagues needed to accept the state court ruling and focus on work in the Legislature instead of “legal games.”

“The Supreme Court of Virginia has already ruled that Virginia Democrats violated the Virginia Constitution,” Terry Kilogore, Virginia House minority leader and plaintiff in the litigation, said. “Now, rather than accept that ruling, they are running to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn it. It’s time to stop the legal games, pass a budget for Virginians, and focus on the November midterms.”

The Supreme Court asked for a response to the Democrats’ application by 5 p.m. on Thursday.

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